The only word I can think of to describe it is ‘brutal”. Meg relationship with her parents caused her to leave and go as far from them as possible. Her abusive ex-husband still manages to harass her occasionally...but for the most part she’s content. Different definition of “content” than I have, but I guess it’s better than what she had. Seems to be enough that she offers a friend, Nerine, and her two daughters' refuge in her home for a month. Here's where the whole story made the reader want to hide in a closet. Nerine’s husband was worse than Meg’s if that was even possible, and Nerine is terrified of EVERYTHING making her children literally basket cases. The story by this point made me want to nail the door to my closet shut from the inside. Just way too much...too much violence...too much fear...too much paranoia. I had to give it up. I can’t imagine life like this ...not even in a book. ( )

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Meg lives alone. Her little house in the bush outside town is the perfect place to hide. This seclusion is one of the reasons she offers to shelter Nerine, a young women escaping an abusive ex-partner. The other is that Meg knows what it’s like to live with the looming threat of a violence at the hands of someone you love.... Nerine is jumpy and her two little girls are frightened. This tells Meg all she needs to know about where they’ve come from, and she’s not all that surprised when Nerine asks her to get hold of a gun. But she knows it’s unnecessary. They’re safe now. Or so Meg thinks… Then she starts to wonder about some little things. A disturbed flyscreen. A tune playing on her windchimes. Has Nerine’s ex tracked them down? Has Meg’s husband turned up to torment her some more? By the time she finds out, it’ll be too late to do anything but run for her life.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Remember the first time the old aphorism, "No good deed goes unpunished," held real, tangible, awful Truth for you? Strap in....

Meg is the kind of friend you hope you'll have in an emergency or crisis. She's been there, she's done what she could, realizes how important the mere fact of showing up is. She'll give you shelter, she'll offer support, she will feed you and listen to you and Be There in the psychological, supportive sense of the words.

That's because she did not get those things when she so badly needed them during her devastatingly abusive marriage.

Nerine and her two daughters are, as we're shown, in a situation where Meg, her home (which she's ever so aptly named "Bolt Hole"), and her way with others are just exactly what they need. In they come; settle they do not. Nerine is in constant motion, constantly talking taking talking about how horrible the girls' father is (right in front of their scared little faces), how bad their lives were, how the courts have...insanely, incomprehensibly...given this vile predatory abuser visitation rights! Can you even imagine! she asks Meg, never waiting for an answer.

Then the nightmare turns real...awful things having been said, there are suddenly weird and unnerving things happening...frightening but, as yet, not violent things...footprints and noises where and when they shouldn't be, and all the time Nerine's talk talk talk about the horrors of the past makes little Analiese and Collette, her very young daughters, scared and jumpy. Meg, a grown woman with an estranged daughter living in England (can't forgive Mum for staying with the awful narcissistic personality disorder-having Dad), empathizes with all three, tries her best to distract and entertain the girls with rural life's many pleasures. Nerine? Nothing changes her focus. She is wound way too tight, experiences all things as threats and blames everything on the violent, awful ex who will, it comes to seem, jump down from a tree onto them with a machete!

As the unnerving stuff escalates into actual violence (CONTENT WARNING: ANIMAL CRUELTY), Meg begins to piece together some very, very strange facts and comes up with a truly frightening picture.

As I read the story, I was genuinely unsettled and disturbed. I can't say I expected the twist, having thought from the get-go there was going to be one. What it was, however, surprised me. Author Jinks deserves big ups for her unnerving choice of an ending. It was not what I'd thought it would be, and made the story that much more appealing to me.

Animal cruelty cost the book a star. I understood why Author Jinks made that choice, and I wasn't inclined to put the book down for good because of it, but it was dreadful and I warn my more sensitive readers (Kathy!) not to consider this tale for their own shelves.

The topic of incest and the crime of rape are factors in this story. They are hot buttons for many. I will say that Author Jinks does not sensationalize them. They aren't dwelt on with ghoulish and repugnant "look! LOOK at how AWFUL men are!" glee. They are presented as facts, and as crimes; they are part of the women's experiences, and are told to us, the readers, as such.

I quite liked the pace set by Author Jinks. We're not in a hurry to get where we're going; there are interesting side characters and the land itself is a character of a sort. That, from my point of view, set the stakes effectively high for Meg, and for the reader. Anything that disrupts this lovely woman's Bolt Hole is a Bad Thing. And boy oh boy, the bad thing is very, very bad indeed. As Spooktober reads go, I think this one is as scary and as nightmarish as they come. Perfect for y'all ghoulies looking for a safe place to be wound up and scared witless! ( )

I thoroughly enjoyed this thriller (which lives up to the word). A woman living in hiding from an abusive husband takes in a similarly-fugitive woman and her kids when a network she belongs to connects them. The woman is a nervous basket case who doesn't seem to see how badly her constant anxiety is affecting her children, but she insists her violent ex will kill them all, given the chance.

There's an interesting combination of domestic context (the day-to-day women's work of taking care of a baby and a traumatized little girl) with suspense as both women's exes pose a threat, though it becomes increasingly clear that the children's mother is a threat in her own way. The plot works, though getting through the twisty end requires the narrator to behave in ways not totally consistent with what we know of her. But overall, a thriller that delivers on the suspense while probing the trauma of living with manipulative and violent men.

At first Meg focusses on keeping Nerine's presence in her house a secret from her neighbours and friends. The scenario is complicated by the impact of everything on Nerene's young daughters.

By the time Meg realises that Nerine is not only unhinged but dangerous, it is almost too late. And nothing prepared me for the impact of what has happened on Meg's own life.

It is enough to persuade you to never help anyone ever again. ( )

Shelter is a tense, twisty domestic thriller, from Australian author Catherine Jinks.

Meg knows all too well what it’s like to suffer at the hands of an abusive husband so she is willing to accept the risks of providing temporary shelter to a young mother and her two daughters on the run. Meg’s home, ‘The Bolthole’, is an isolated property in country NSW, and great care has been taken to ensure the family are impossible to trace, yet Nerine remains terrified that her husband will find them. Though Meg does her best to allay Nerine’s fears, and reassure five year old Ana and 22 month old Collette they are safe, some minor incidents stoke’s Meg’s own anxieties. She thinks it is more likely her own ex-husband has returned to intimidate her with regards to a recent inheritance, than Nerine’s husband having found her, but the real threat is closer to home than Meg can ever imagine.

Shelter isn’t an easy read, the themes and issues central to the novel, which includes generational trauma, domestic violence, psychological manipulation, and narcissism, are uncomfortable to explore, however I got caught up in this taut, well paced thriller which cleverly subverts reader’s expectations. Though the primary plot twist is not entirely unexpected, it shocks nevertheless, and Jinks left me feeling breathless as the level of menace and violence accelerated in its wake. In regards to the conclusion though I am somewhat torn, it’s reasonably realistic and as such fitting, but not very satisfying.

At times I found Meg to be a frustrating character, however her behaviour really is in keeping with someone who has been a long term victim of psychological abuse by a narcissistic partner. Even though she is physically free of her ex husband, Meg’s first instinct is always to appease someone who exhibits high emotion, or makes demands of her, so she reacts, rather than makes decisions. Nerine is convincing as a mother paranoid about the safety of herself and her children, and though she’s not particularly likeable, she is sympathetic in light of the story she presents. Jinks’s portrayal of the children, especially Ana, deserves special mention, as they are accurately represented with regards to age and circumstance.

I found Shelter to be dark and disturbing, yet utterly engrossing, but fair warning, it may be too much for readers sensitive to its themes. ( )